Fuzzy SETS: acknowledging multiple membership of elements within social-ecological-technological systems (SETS) theory

Convergent research to tackle complex, wicked problems requires synthesis across multiple sectors and disciplines, but epistemological, ontological, and linguistical disagreements between disciplinarily diverse research teams can hinder the progress of transdisciplinary team efforts. For example, in social-ecological-technological systems (SETS), elements within the system may require distinction between component (S-E-T) parts to be conceptualized and modeled. Current SETS literature has focused predominantly on the deep interconnections across these social, ecological, and technological elements, but has not addressed how to explicitly acknowledge potentially messy, multi-membership classifications of elements within these categories. We introduce the conceptual framework of Fuzzy SETS, drawing on mathematical fuzzy set theory and SETS literature. By treating these categories as "fuzzy," or being capable of multiple memberships, we investigate how the conceptual framework of fuzzy SETS can facilitate convergent, collaborative research across multiple disciplines and epistemologies by explicitly acknowledging and visualizing differences and similarities in perception of a given SETS. We apply this framework to our own work of creating a system dynamics model of the Santa Fe Watershed, New Mexico. Within our network of researchers, diverse perspectives exist when categorizing elements within the Santa Fe Watershed into social, ecological, and technological categories. Our findings support the hypothesis that the fuzzy SETS conceptual framework is a way to honor a diversity of epistemological perspectives within transdisciplinary teams by explicitly accepting that different views can coexist and can actually enrich our understanding of systems by creating a basis for asking deeper questions regarding their elements and dynamics.